When Vanessa Benelli Mosell, the Italian
pianist born in 1987, was still a teenager,
she studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen
(1928-2007) after showing affi nities for his
music. The Stockhausen work here was
drawn from a scene in his opera
Donnerstag aus Licht (1977-1980) in which
a student undergoes three conservatory
admission exams as a singer, trumpeter and
dancer. In the opera, the candidate
triumphs, as does Mosell here, with a
strongly individual and delightfully
personal statement. By contrast, some
other pianists make this music sound like
the aural equivalent of an A Level.
Devotion and an occasional jolly taste for
the grotesque is audible in this
performance, which will warm the heart of
any fan of modern piano music. Playing
with authority and joy, Mosell is no less
passionate, but considerably more lyrical,
than her elder compatriot Maurizio
Pollini, also identified with this repertoire.

The works by Scriabin on this CD are
more of a mixed bag, in part because of
competition from recordings by great
pianists of yore. In the Scriabin Preludes
Op 11, Mosell’s pliant, urbane, lyrical
approach is perhaps closest to the
admirable Gina Bachauer, eschewing the
monumental architecture that Sviatoslav
Richter and Glenn Gould found in this
composer. Her Etude in C-sharp minor Op
2 No 1 seems a trifle bass-heavy and
ponderous, but then, who could match the
competition from Vladimir Horowitz,
Emil Gilels and others? Mosell is happier
with the dance inspiration of Op 2 No 3,
recalling terpsichorean twirls by Vladimir
Sofronitsky. In the thrice-familiar Etude
Op 8 No 12, Mosell manages equilibrium
and restraint, welcome in this piece which
other pianists sometimes make a meal of.